Wife is pregnant no insurance

[u/Sam3325]

Hello my wife is pregnant she’s due October 17th She started a new job last year where she has no benefits she makes $72k a year and I make 55k a year. She had insurance from her last job and I have insurance through my job. She was promised benefits but never an exact date so at the meantime I didn’t add her under my insurance thinking after the 90days they would give her the benefit package (big mistake) We’ll 2 month into her job she’s pregnant her job is yet to provide insurance they have said they don’t know when she will get benefits. She works 40-35 hours a week but on paper it says she’s part-time. We do not qualify for Medicare because we make to much just wanted to see is there any way she could get insurance or help? We do make enough but with all our bills and debt we don’t know if the hospital bill will be to much for us. Doctor visits isn’t a problem but knowing thousands of dollars could be billed to us scares us

[u/wyliec22]

Sadly OP and spouse chose to go without coverage for her for an indefinite period. During that time, COBRA could have been chosen or she could have been added to OP’s plan or she could have obtained coverage through ACA plans (open enrollment).

The time periods for accessing those opportunities has passed.

From age 18 through my current 70s, I went to great lengths to ensure there was never a single day anyone in my family was without health insurance. Just too many unexpected things that can happen to take that risk.

[u/[deleted] → u/wyliec22]

Great for you. You realize you sound preachy rather than helpful, right? She was promised benefits. They didn’t come.

[u/Sam3325 → u/[deleted]]

Thank you promised benefits that’s never came. It’s a risk we took at the moment trusting a county job because she works for the DA office in Gwinnett GA. The job is a high paying job I understand people say just quit but it’s not easy. Me and my wife and been trying to have a baby for 3 years planning and it ended up happening once there was no insurance. I know seems irresponsible but promised benefits that’s we trusted never came

[u/WestBaseball492 → u/Sam3325]

Wait, she is working for the county government? She needs to reach out to HR to rectify this. Is this part of her employment contract?  If she is working that many hours, she’s FT and should be receiving whatever benefits they offer. I assume she is not a 1099 contractor—if so, that would be a different situation.

If she is considered an employee by the county itself, they are breaking all kinds of rules in terms of employment classification and offering employees insurance as that is a large enough employer to be subject to those rules. 

[u/Mysterious-Art8838 → u/WestBaseball492]

I mean that took a WILD turn!!! I just assumed it was a tiny startup

[u/Txrh221 → u/WestBaseball492]

Yeah something isn’t right. Either the details are incorrect or his spouse is being mistreated.